Cross-references from one Frame book to another

Question

I have a client who has two FrameMaker 8 books. The books were a mess (left over from a previous contractor - it was a nightmare) and they hired me to fix them.
But one thing that did work in the old books was their cross-ref setup - they need cross-refs from each book to the other one. The client knew that they had to have the Frame and pdf files in a stable folder structure that did not change. Then, when they created their two pdfs, the cross-refs "found each other" properly.
I fixed everything in the Frame docs EXCEPT those book-to-book cross-refs. I told my client that they would have to create those on their own, because I couldn't duplicate their folder structure - and they were fine with that. But I DID create all cross-refs that were within each individual book (hundreds of them - very technical books).
But now they are getting hundreds of unresolved cross-refs when they open the files in each book. I thought they must have moved some files out of the folders that I gave them in their zip files, but they swear they haven't done so.
For the life of me, I can't think of any other reason why they're having trouble with the cross-refs. Any ideas?
Gilda Spitz

Answer 1

Gilda,<br /><br />Here are some simple rules for creating book-to-book links in PDFs<br />from FM:<br /><br />1. If you're creating the PDFs of the books as a single PDF, then you<br />must have the respective ".book" files open (no need for the .fm files<br />to be open), when creating the PDFs. Otherwise, the "external" links<br />will be made to the specific pdf equivalent of the ".fm" file, if the<br />".book" file is not open.<br /><br />2. The links between the books on the same disk drive, will be as<br />relative links, which need to preserved if the files are moved.<br /><br />3. If the goal is to have all of the book PDFs in one place for<br />distribution, then it's best to place all of the .book files in the<br />same folder to begin with. The .fm files can be in their own<br />respective project folders, but you have to keep the books together.<br /><br />Caution: simply moving/copying (or doing a Save As from within FM) the<br />.book files to the common folder will not work, as they will be<br />missing the (relative) path to the actual .fm files. You'll need to<br />either recreate the book files (be careful with TOC, IX and other<br />generated files - you have to recreate, not add, these to book) in the<br />target folder or do some spelunking in a .mif version of the .book to<br />adjust the path on the "<FileName" entry of each book component. <br />[This sounds like a job for Framescript... ;-) ]<br /><br />4. If the names of the .book files are not the names that you want to<br />have on the final PDF files, then change the .book filenames to what<br />you want before creating the PDFs. When the .book files are open for<br />creating PDFs, FM will use the .book filename for the target in<br />cross-book links. Let FM always handle the naming, otherwise you run a<br />very good chance of breaking cross-book links.<br /><br />5. If you are producing the PDFs as individual files of the component<br />.fm files in the book, then things are a bit trickier. You have to do<br />each component file, one at a time and have the target .book file open<br />when going down this route. It won't work as you expect when trying to<br />print using the "*" directive for the multiple files at once. IIRC,<br />there was a plug-in from Mekon quite a while ago that fixed this<br />situation for FM5 and 6. I don't know if it's needed now, as I tend to<br />avoid the SaveAs PDF route in the newer versions, so I haven't tested<br />this issue with FM8 or FM9.<br /><br />I hope this helps clarify some things. And the grand master of all<br />things FM to PDF (Shlomo Perets) may be all over this if I've got<br />something wrong or have outdated advice. In that case, never mind...